Not Generating Leads?

By Elise Rappoport - Posted on 17 February 2012

Attracting lots of untargeted web traffic that doesn’t convert to leads… or at least not at the rate you want it to? We’ve all been there. In fact, you may be surprised to find out that lead generation is one of the major challenges technology companies we’ve worked with have had to overcome.

While they may be a testament to an increased awareness of your brand, an improved visibility and the excellence of your content, high levels of traffic have no tangible value. Marketers have, indeed, bemoaned the fact traffic doesn’t yield itself to much more than quantification and segmentation. As an Econsutlancy/Adobe report found, while businesses agree that web traffic value is critical to measure, a mere 17% of the companies studied have such processes in place. (Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing)

Rather than revelling in web traffic glory, as a savvy technology decision-maker, you’d be better off asking yourself, ”What am I doing with all that traffic? Have I got practices in place that will ensure these visitors come back to my website and eventually, convert to paying customers? Who do I want to attract, engage and turn into a client in the long run?”

Here are three typical lead generation mistakes we’ve identified in our work with technology companies… followed by three solutions that we have seen change things around for our clients.

Do any of these errors apply to you?

1. Not having a clear idea about what makes a qualified lead
 Sales funnel metrics are pivotal to evaluating the performance of any marketing campaign but they are often tricky to set right. Usually the sales funnel process involves sales reps picking up the phone and calling a prospect the minute it hits the database, which can, frankly, appear pushy, intrusive and bad manners. The other extreme scenario is when neither marketing nor sales do anything with the web visitors or leads who eventually, and inevitably, lose interest.

Too much untargeted traffic can be problematic, too – you really need to know who it is that you want to target and where to find them (or rather, be found by them). Search engine optimisation plays a crucial part in reaching your target audiences. Opting for long-tail terms instead of generic keywords will increase your chances of getting found by better qualified prospects that are more likely to find your content relevant and engage with it.

Solution: Keeping prospects engaged before cold calling them and defining exactly what a qualified lead is on the basis of your marketing personas. Marketing and sales process integration is absolutely imperative in this instance.

2. Not having a lead data capturing process in place
How do you know whether you have reached your target audience and who may be interested in your company if you’re not at least trying to capture their data? And I’m not talking about sensitive personal data such as age, sex or company revenue – all you need is their name and email address. Remember, in 2012 marketing is all about big data! Without it, our hands as marketers are tied.

Solution: If you have a value piece such as an ebook, a webcast or a case study to share with the world (and most importantly, your target audience), why not create a call-to-action leading to a designated landing page with a form visitors can fill out to download the content?

You have put a lot of effort into creating it, so surely some readers will be happy to leave their name and email address in exchange for your great piece of content. Remember, though: don’t ask for too much detail and make sure your content is, indeed, worth it.

3. Not monitoring, analysing and comparing metrics in a consistent way
How do you know what works and what doesn’t, if you don’t track, monitor, analyse and compare metrics over time? A lot of tech marketers are still astoundingly unaware of the metrics they need to follow. While these will differ from company to company, the visitor-to-lead ratio remains by far one of the most critical metrics. Closed-loop analytics will tell you all about how interested a prospect is, how likely they are to convert, whether they are qualified and what needs to be done to push the lead down the sales funnel.

The same applies to your campaigns – tracking and analysing the performance of each initiative, testing and optimising it over time will give you a clear view of the performance of each respective campaign.

Solution: Try closed-loop analytics – track, test and tweak any content you push out into the digital space. Depending on the results, you could replace low-yield campaigns with ones that have proven to be better performing on the lead generation front. Remember to do so with the care and precision of a scientist!

Lead generation shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, especially if you are in technology marketing, a field famous for being inhabited by the most natural early adopters of innovative practices and technology. The bottom line message is that if you wish to generate more leads, you should integrate marketing and sales – the key to better conversion rates lies in the two teams working together around a common goal. ‘Silos’ are so last century…

Contributed by Biserka Anderson

0 comments  |  Subjects: Lead Generation, Best Practice, Campaign Planning

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